boehner had agreed to $800 billion. it's not hard to find $1.2 trillion as a kind of middle ground to that. then you want to have $4 trillion of total deficit reduction, so that leaves $2.8 trillion of spending reductions that have to happen. here's what people miss. we can avoid going over the cliff with the stroke of a pen. they can just extend all this stuff and kick the can down the road. the real question is are we going to have a big deal? are we going to agree on the major spending restraints that we need as well as the tax stuff in order to actually get the deficit under control? and i think the betting on that is less than 50%. i think we have a great shot at it. but it's going to be really, really hard. >> is that the view from wall street, too? they're not totally confident that this is going to happen? >> what you see in the stock market at the moment is that wall street is not totally confident. that's for sure. >> all right. steve, thanks so much. >> pleasure. >>> coming up, independent senator-elect of ma